”Life is a predator; you’ve got to eat it before it eats you.” This is the motto the legendary and age defying Joan Collins lives by. This was a very enjoyable and intimate evening in which Joan reminisces about her vast career in television and Hollywood’s golden era. It is a very slick production tied together with old photos from her early acting days and clips from her movies combined with the interruption of a phone ringing onstage in which she answers pretending to re-enact her past conversations relating to the story being told before putting it down and carrying on with her narration.
Joan always comes across as a very confident woman and this is evident with her sashaying around the stage while sharing her humorous tales about the time Joan Crawford snubbed her, the awkward scenes with Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen, Marilyn Monroe’s wise words to her about the sharks in tinsel town and of course there are plenty of anecdotes about Dynasty including very funny outtakes of her in her infamous Alexis role.Clips from The Bitch and Fantasy Island got big laughs especially the scenes from her cheesier B-movie’s such as Empire of the Ants plus there is a show reel dedicated to catfights for which there are plenty to choose a favourite from.
Once Joan has finished her trip down memory lane, the lights go down and its time for another quick costume change. She returns and settles down to answer questions from the audience with the help of her husband Percy Gibson. On the night I went one questioner asked whether she actually owns a pair of tracksuit bottoms – surprisingly she does, but she made sure to mention they are cashmere!
At the age of 16, Joan was told by her teachers that she didn’t have the acting chops and that her dreams of being an actress would remain unfulfilled. It looks as though Joan is having the last laugh.
One Night with Joan is touring the UK but returns to London’s Leicester Square Theatre on 13,14th, 26, 27, 28th April.
Tickets cost from £30.
No comments:
Post a Comment